Florida faces a grim future if rising seas along with our usual storms
flood critical parts of the coastal counties which house and employ
three-quarters of our population.

There seems little chance that Florida Legislators and the Governor
will creep out of their caves enough to acknowledge global warming, let
alone try to restrain it.

Florida’s best hopes for preservation rest mainly with our fractious
Congress and President. Both parties are guilty to some extent of
failing to halt actions that increase the greenhouse gas emissions
overheating the earth.

For example nine Democrats joined with nine Republicans in a letter to
the President urging him to approve the Keystone XL pipeline that would
promote continuing Canadian tar sands exploitation. Tar sands
extraction, processing, transporting and consumption could make global
warming irreversible.

Perhaps the only shock sufficient to unite Congress and the President
into cooperative action would be a 108 degree heat spell for two weeks
in DC when Congress is in session. Then a superstorm like Sandy hitting
DC would be tragic, but could spur government actions to take global
leadership in preventing a far worse tragedy of irreversible climate
chaos. We have the technology to restrain global overheating
effectively, but the fight won’t be easy.